Radiation leak row sinks relations with MoD to new depths

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HMS Vanguard’s reactor is to be refuelled at a cost of £120 million after the leakJeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Jeremy Watson

Published at 12:01AM, March 7 2014

Relations between ministers in Edinburgh and London reached a new low last night after it emerged that the Ministry of Defence had not informed the Scottish government for two years about a radiation leak that has produced a £270 million bill for taxpayers.

Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, told the Commons that Britain’s oldest nuclear submarine, HMS Vanguard, was to have her reactor refuelled at a cost of £120 million after a test reactor at Dounreay, in Caithness, was found in 2012 to have a small internal leak of radiation. A further £150 million would have to be spent on